Tag: internet

The social media site Twitter has announced its first profit since the founding of the company in 2005. The last quarter of 2017 saw the company making $ 91 million in profits. After the announcement, Twitter sharesrose more than 20%.

Twitter made the profits from an increase in ad sales and from expansion outside the US. Overall revenue has been increasing constantly and is now at $ 731 million, due to a better targetting of ads. While revenue in the US fell, it increased strongly in Japan and other countries.

Currently, Twitter is reported to have over 330 million active users. It has been an important media outlet for celebrities and politicians, especially in the United States, for a long time. However, surprisingly, up to now, the company has failed to make any profits. Business experts have criticized Twitter for failing to grow over the longer term and step out of the shadows of its bigger brother, Facebook.

The company has announced its plans for 2018. It wants to improve the quality of information and tacklesecurity issues, for example, fake accounts and spam. As many as 15% of all accounts on Twitter are said to be controlled by bots.

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco – Image: Runner1928

Words

account = agreement you have with an organisation so that you can use its services or website

ad = advertisement = pictures, text or a short film that persuades people to buy a product

announce = to say in public, officially

bot = computer programme that can control information on a website

celebrity = famous person

constantly = slowly, but all the time

currently = at the moment

due to = because of

especially = above all

expansion = when something increases in size

fail = here: not succeed in doing something

fake = not a real person

founding = when the company started

increase = grow, become larger

longer term = over a longer period of time

outlet = here: organization through which information is presented

overall = total; altogether

politician = person who works in the government, parliament or a political party

profit = the money you for selling things or doing business after your costs have been paid for

reported = it is said that …

revenue = money that a company gets in a certain time for selling products and services

rise – rose = to go up

security issues = problems in which the website is attacked by criminals and hackers

shares = part of a company that you can buy

spam = message that is sent to many different people by email or the Internet, usually as a way of advertising something

Facebook has announced that it will release a new version of its popular app Messenger for children aged between 6 and 12. They do not need their own Facebook account to access the app, called Messenger Kids.

With Messenger Kids, parents will be able to control what their children see and who they are allowed to communicate with. There are no ads in the children’s version and Facebook has promised not to use a child’s information for other purposes. In addition, children’s names will not be integrated into Facebook’s search tool. At the moment, the app will only be available in the United States.

Facebook aims at getting children to become used to its product even if they are under the age required to get a normal account. As the company is losing younger customers to rivals Instagram and Snapchat, the company is trying to get young users to connect to their product before competitors do.

Messenger Kids will offer text and video chat as well as stickers and drawing tools. Special detection filtersprevent children from sharing sexual content or violence online.

According to Facebook, over 90% of all 8 to 12-year-olds have smartphones or tablets. Many use their parents’ Facebook account.The new app is intended to give children a feeling of having their own account, while parents are still incontrol.Messenger Kids will not automatically be converted into a normal Facebook account when children reach 13.

Children can now use a special Facebook app to contact their friends.

Words

access = use

according to = as said by …

account =a service that allows you to do or see things on the Internet

ad = picture, words or a short film which is intended to make people buy a product

aim = wants, plan to

available = here: use

announce = to say officially in public

communicate = talk, chat with or write to

competitor = rival

content = comments, pictures video etc..

convert = change into, automatically become

customer = person who buys something

detection filter = here: a tool that is used to stop bad things from getting seen by children

Short Message Service (SMS), also called texting, is celebrating its 25th birthday. The first text message was sent in Great Britain shortly before Christmas in 1992 in Great Britain. It was British engineer Neil Papworth who sent the first message from a computer to a mobile phone on the Vodaphone network. At that time mobile phones could only receive messages, not send them.

In 1994, Nokia presented its first mobile phone that could actually send and receive messages. It was the first phone that could produce more than an audio signal. Shortly afterwards the first commercial SMS service started in Finland. Text messages were limited to 160 characters.

25 years later text messaging is widelypopular. 97% of all smartphone users send some type of text message regularly. About 25 billion are sent every day. Today there are more complex messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messanger and iMessage.

Media experts regard texting as the first step towards today’s smartphones, which are basically pocket computers with countless apps.

Texting has changed the way we communicate. For the first time, you could send the same text to different contacts at the same time andit didn’tmatter if the recipient was reachable or not. A new language has also emerged with abbreviations and short sentences.

Texting on a mobile phone – Image : Helar Lukats

Words

abbreviation = short form of a word or phrase

actually = really, in fact

basically = practically

celebrate = to show that an event is important

commercial = here: something that you can make money with

communicate = exchange information or get into contact with each other

complex = advanced; with many different parts

countless = very many

emerge = develop, appear

engineer = person who designs and builds machines and other objects

limit = only allow

network = here: system of telephone lines that are connected to each other

For the first time in history, China has overtaken the United States in the number of supercomputers. Currently, China has a total of 202 of the world’s 500 fastest computers, up from 159 half a year ago. The number of US supercomputers has dropped to 144.

The world’s most powerful computer is located in China. The Sunway TaihuLight , at Wuxi can do 93 quadrillioncalculations per second. The fastest UScomputer,the Titan, is ranked fifth while Europe’s speediest computer is Switzerland’s Piz Daint, ranked third.

Supercomputers are machines that occupyentire buildings and use the combined power of thousands of processors. They are used to carry out special tasks that involve a huge number of calculations. Among them are weather forecasts and climate studies, as well as strategic tasks like nuclear weapons simulations.

Chinese supremacy in the world of supercomputing reflects the country’s investment in research and development. One-fifth of the money used on research and development around the world is spent in China.

On the other side, many Chinese systems have been created to earn money. Processing power is rented to other national and international companies.

For years the speed of supercomputers has steadily increased although since 2012 this increase has slowed down.

Singles Day is the biggest e-commerce day in the world. Organized by China’s Alibaba, shopping sales on November 11 hit a record $25 billion, 40% more than on Singles Day 2016. In contrast, Prime Day, organized by Amazonachieved only $1 billion in sales. During the Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend of 2016 American online shoppers spent $5 billion.

Singles Day started out as an informal holiday in China, celebrating people who stayed single. Similiar to Valentine’s Day in the western world Singles Day took place on 11/11 . In 2009, Alibaba turned it into a shopping holiday and in the past 8 years, sales have steadilyincreased.

Although the event targets mostly Chinese customers, shoppers came from 220 countries. Over 80 brands took part in the event, with Nike and Xiaomi Corp. among the biggest winners. Household goods and electrical appliances were the most bought products, but customers soughtbargains for almost everything, ranging from cheap toilet paper to rice.

At its peak Alibaba’s computers handled 250 000 transactions per second, most of them coming in via mobile phones. In the weeks before the event was held, Alibaba had helped 600,000 companies upgrade their computer systems to make them fit for Singles Day.

The event was also turned into a gala in Shanghai where celebrities Nicole Kidman and tennis star Maria Sharapova counted down the seconds until the world’ largest sales event started.

Many critics of the event say that Singles Day is environmentallycontroversial. It creates an enormous amount of waste. According to Greepeace, 1 billion packages were delivered in the days that followed the event.

Alibaba’s Singles Day is a display of Chinese spending power. The company’s owner, Jack Ma, is one of China’s richest men. He has been investing heavily in new technologies includingautomated stores which use facial recognition systems.

Singles Day in China – Image: Chrionexfleckeri1350

Words

according to = … as said by

achieve = here: reach a number of sales

automated = where everything is done automatically, without people helping

although = while

bargain = to buy something cheaply, for less money than usual

billion = a thousand million

brand = type of product made by a company

celebrate = here: in honour of, to show respect for

celebrity = famous person

controversial = here: to cause a lot of disagreement

critic = a person who is against something

customer = a person who buys something

deliver = to bring to a person’s home

display = to show something

e-commerce = buying and selling things with computers over the Internet

electrical appliance = things you use at home and need electricity, like a cooker or washing machine

enormous = very large

environment = nature and the world around us

facial recognition = when a computer image of a person can find out who they are

handle = deal with

heavily = very much

household goods = things that you need in the house and use every day

in contrast = the difference between two things

including = also

increase = to go up

informal = not official

record = highest

sales = buying and selling products

seek – sought = look for

steadily = slowly

target = people who the event aims at; potential customers

transaction = here: the sales of a single product

upgrade = here: to give a computer more power, so that it can do more things

The social networking service Twitter has increased the number of characters that can be used for a single tweet to 280. The new limit will apply to English and other languages that use a Roman alphabet. Languages, such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean, are not affected by the change because users can say more with fewer characters.

Twitter says that the change has been made to give people more opportunity to say what they think and express their opinions without making texts shorter or using bad grammar. More space makes it easier to put your thoughts in writing.

Twitter decided to implement the change after a month of intensive testing .Those who tested the new character limit said it was good because they were able to express themselves in a better way.

In the first few days after the new rule took effect, many people used up the full 280 character limit. A spokesperson said that, after a few days, everything had become normal again. Only five percent of all tweets exceeded the old 140 character limit, probably because most users were used to it.

Twitter’s 140-character limit goes back to the days when the company was founded in 2006. Back then, the limit for sending SMS text messages was 140 characters and Twitter based the new service on that limit. Texting today is considered out of date and not used that much anymore.

Twitter logo

Words

affect = here: to do something that produces a change

apply = affect; to be used for

character = letter, number or sign used in an alphabet

considered = thought to be …

exceed = to be more than …

express = tell or show what you think or feel

found – founded = here: to start a new company

implement = here: to make changes

increase = to go up

intensive = here: a lot of

limit = here: the number of characters you are allowed to use

opinion = what you think about something

opportunity = chance

out of date = not useful, because something more modern has taken its place

Roman alphabet = alphabet used in English and other European languages

spokesperson = someone who speaks for a company and makes announcements in public

Estonia is a small Baltic state with a population of 1.3 million. Despite its size it is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world and has been creating a digital society since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In Estonia, citizens are allowed to do most things online. Every inhabitant has a uniqueID card that they use for a number of purposes.They can file tax returns, get medical prescriptions and manage their health records online. They can pay for a parking ticket via mobile phone and don’t have to go to a registration office when a child is born. Parents can check their children’s grades and communicate with teachers. For many years Estonians have been able to vote online.

In 2014 the small Baltic country started a new digital initiative. It allows non-citizens to become digital residents for 100 euros. The government wants to bring qualified people to the country because the working population is steadily decreasing. The country desperately needs new programmers, web developers and media experts. Up to now 20 000 people from other countries have applied for digital citizenship.

Many countries, among them Finland and Japan are trying to copy Estonia’s digital society. However, authoritiespoint out that the country’s smallness is an advantage. Such a system may not work very well in larger countries with millions of people.

Digital Summit in Estonia – Image: Anna Piperal

Words

advanced = very modern

advantage = here: something that helps you to be successful

apply = to make a request

authorities = the people who are in charge of a government organisation or department

Baltic = region in the northeastern part of Europe

citizen = person who lives in a country and has rights there

collapse = breakdown , end

create = make

decrease = go down

desperately = very much

despite = even though

file tax returns = here: to send information on how much you have earned to the local government; it then tells you how much tax you have to pay

government = the people who rule a country

health records = information about your health

however = but

ID card = small plastic card that has information about a person

inhabitant = a person who lives in a country

initiative = a new plan

point out = to show something that is important

population = the number of people living in a country

prescription = a piece of paper on which the doctor writes down what medicine a sick person should take

purpose = what something is needed for

qualified = with special skills and talents

registration office = place where you have report to when a baby is born or someone dies

resident = a person who officially lives in a country

society = people in general and the way they live and work together

size =how large the country is

smallness = not large in size

Soviet Union = largest Communist country that existed between 1922 and 1991